Lomme Devriendt

Cyberplace and Cyberspace: Two Approaches to Analyzing Digital Intercity Linkages

FROM the mid-1990s, there has been an enormous growth in the use and diversity of information and communications technologies (ICT), such as global positioning systems (GPS), virtual reality (VR), voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), short message service (SMS), and others. The use of webcam conversation, digital signature, real-time chat, e-mail, and several other digital communication applications are almost everyday practices and are indispensable in business transactions. Traditional activities such as shopping, banking, entertaining, and working are being progressively supplemented by numerous e-applications such as e-working, e-shopping, e-banking, and e-entertainment. Although the effect of this “e-volution” has to be put into perspective, most e-applications complement but do not substitute for traditional activities. A number of e-products also generate completely new fields of application. For instance, in order to secure or send information, we all put information into a digital format. Castells has pointed out that the world annual production of information in different forms amounts to 1.5 billion gigabytes of which, in 1999, 93 percent was already produced in digital format. The availability of this huge volume of digital information enables us to communicate and derive information “any time, any place.” Mokhtarian et al. Weltevreden

City networks in cyberspace and time : using Google hyperlinks to measure global economic and environmental crises

Personal data has been widely used as it became a fundamental tool for the development of various activities in the public and private domain. The automation of information processing has become indispensable due to increasing demands from a mass society, to the point that today, in many circumstances, it would be unthinkable not to take advantage of this resource1. The technology applied to information processing, on the other hand, increases the risk of invasion of privacy and control over individuals through the misuse of personal information, what encouraged the emergence of legal institutes capable of counterbalancing this absTRacTBy adopting a necessary multidisciplinary approach ICTs for Mobile and Ubiquitous Urban Infrastructures: Surveillance, Locative Media and Global Networks focuses on ICTs and new urban infrastructures to discuss how the world has been revolutionized. Discussions developed here, both theoretical and analytical, are all connected with global networks of signs, values and ideologies, locative media that gives us the freedom of spatial mobility and the possibility of creating and recreating places, and the surveillance artefacts which permeate our daily life and allow a hypothetical total control of space.Geographers and social scientists have long been interested in ranking and classifying the cities of the world. The cutting edge of this research is characterized by a recognition of the crucial importance of information and, specifically, ICTs to cities’ positions in the current Knowledge Economy. This chapter builds on recent “cyberspace” analyses of the global urban system by arguing for, and demonstrating empirically, the value of Web search engine data as a means of understanding cities as situated within, and constituted by, flows of digital information. To this end, we show how the Google search engine can be used to specify a dynamic, informational classification of North American cities based on both the production and the consumption of Web information about two prominent current issues global in scope: the global financial crisis, and global climate change.

Cyberspatial Proximity Metrics: Reconceptualizing Distance in the Global Urban System

In this paper we analyze how distances between a sample of a hundred major world cities varies when measured in cyberspace. The project develops a novel spatial statistical model based upon the number of user-generated placemarks indexed by Google Maps. We demonstrate how this metric captures the “invisible” patterns of intercity information flows and helps comprehend the contours of the complex digital network that exists between large urban centers across the world. Using a specially designed software program to interrogate Google Maps, a series of keyword searches (“tourism,” “business,” “hotel”) as well as each of the city names were conducted in each of the sample places. Comparing this digital measure with the material movement of people and other relevant descriptive variables, such as national economic development and language differences, we were able to provide a cogent model that plausibly explains why certain city pairs (especially those that are physically distant) exhibit strong informational linkages. While the strength of these digital connections undoubtedly demonstrates the continued importance of physical proximity and established transport infrastructures in the twenty-first century, one can also observe significant evidence for [new?] digital “wormholes” which indicates that processes of globalization driven by online interaction also operates by its own rules.

Measuring hierarchical differentiation: connectivity and dominance in the European urban network

Abstract This paper presents an examination of the empirical merits of a set of spatial interaction indices for measuring hierarchical differentiation (i.e. dominance and connectivity) in a spatial network. To allow for the comparison of the degree of hierarchical differentiation in networks with different numbers of nodes/links, we propose to normalize the ratio between the real measures and the corresponding values for a rank size distribution in order to obtain readily interpretable measures of hierarchical differentiation. When applied to data on air passenger flows within Europe, the normalized indices, interpreted together, appear to give a good idea of the tendency toward hierarchical differentiation. The potential usefulness of this analytical framework is discussed in the context of studies on (transnational) inter-city relations and empirical assessments of changes in the spatial configuration of airline networks.

Assessing the Impacts of the Global Financial Crisis on Major and Minor Cities in South and Southeast Asia: A Hyperlink Analysis

We used the number of volume of hyperlinks, that is, electronic data from Google, for 19 large cities in South and Southeast Asia to demonstrate their national (in the case of India), regional, and extraregional linkages. The results can be used to illustrate the degree of intraregional and interregional flows of information about the global financial crisis between major and minor cities within South and Southeast Asia and other major global economic powers. Singapore, without doubt, is the major city in these regions. Kuala Lumpur, Bangalore, Bangkok, Delhi, and Mumbai are in a second category; Lahore, Karachi, Kolkata, and Dhaka are in yet another category. Indian cities exhibit strong national linkages. The accompanying tables, maps, and graphs illustrate the vast contrasts between cities in these two regions.